“Part of the cover-up,” Andy said. “But you’re right.”
“About what? My friends at school are in more danger than I realized.”
“Did you notice subtle differences in Skull Head between the two memories?” Andy asked.
“Yeah, he wore different skull masks.”
“I said subtle.”
“He acted like a used car salesman in one and a psychopath in the other.”
Andy touched his fingertips together and made a tent. “Can you be a tad more specific?”
I thought about it. “Mason was calm when he was with LaReau. Like he was bored. He was a lot nastier when he killed Mr. Munificent. He felt so powerful. Then he was back to normal, spying on me at school.”
“You have good instincts,” a voice boomed behind me, and I spun so fast I nearly broke Andy’s machine.
“Where did you come from?” I said, trying to catch my breath.
“God made me,” the Kilodan said. “Do you know what this means?”
“He has a sense of humor.”
“Thankfully. Whose mind were you in when you projected LaReau?”
“Norman LaReau’s, compliments of the Memory Lash,” I said.
“Whose mind were you in when you projected Munificent?”
“Mason’s, I think. But I don’t know how I got that memory.”
The Kilodan looked at Andy, then at the blank screen. “You believe Mason Draudimon is the man with the skull mask.”
“I’m around him enough. It’s possible that I picked up his memory fragments. Ooh, I remember! I saw the vision of Mr. Munificent’s murder right after Mason handed me a smiley face and gave me a noogie in Algebra!”
“Memory transfer by noogie,” Andy said, slamming his fist into his open palm. “Happens all the time.”
I turned to the Kilodan. “Is he serious?”
“That would be a momentous occasion. No, memories do not transfer simply because someone touches us. Nor do visions pop unasked into our consciousness.” The Kilodan moved in front of my chair. His expressionless mask peered down at me. “Some memories are filled with extremely dark emotions, too violent to be contained. They can force themselves into the mind of one as sensitive as you. It is unlikely that the mayor’s son is the one called Scallion. However, Munificent’s evidence suggests that he has connections to Scallion. LaReau has been paying Scallion for drugs and victims. I would like you to learn whether Mason can lead us to Scallion. If we find Scallion, I am certain we can convince him to lead us to LaReau.”
No doubt. I would not want to be on the Kilodan’s Naughty List.
Okay, so Mason wasn’t a Knight, but he was involved with a Knight, which still meant he was a filthy marsupial.
“I’ll find the other one,” Andy said. “I’ll stop him permanently this time.”
Other one? “What other one?”
“Scallion didn’t kill Amos Munificent,” the Kilodan said. “You correctly sensed that the man in the skull mask felt more powerful in the second memory. If we were to replay the memories, you would notice other subtle differences. There are two Knights. The one who calls himself Scallion tries to imitate the older, more powerful Knight. But it is an unimpressive imitation. He is the apprentice we’ve been looking for.”
Andy leaned toward the Kilodan. “Is this what Munificent knew that he didn’t tell us?”
I was confused. “Okay, who is the other Knight? The one who killed Mr. Munificent?”
The Kilodan took me by the shoulders and eased me out of the chair. “Amos was murdered by Nicolaitan.”
I was instantly numb. The man who murdered my parents. “He was spying on me in that memory.”
Andy shook his head. “That was a memory of several memories. Nicolaitan scanned Munificent right before he killed him. The school, the assembly. When you felt the flash of anger, that’s when he saw Munificent’s memory of a meeting with our beloved Kilodan. Ol’ Nic doesn’t like the Big K.”
“Arch enemies tend to have that relationship,” the Kilodan said. “We have never faced off, but someday soon, we will. On that day, one of us will have no more secrets.”
“Okay, then who was spying on me in Nicolaitan’s memory?”
“Nicolaitan took that memory from Scallion,” Andy said. “It proves that Scallion’s alter ego has been in your school. It doesn’t prove who he is.”
“Makes perfect sense if Scallion is Mason,” I said. “I don’t understand why you say Mason is not a Knight.”
Andy’s expression turned deadly serious. “Mason is the boy your parents rescued. We have had him under surveillance ever since. Nicolaitan never came back for him. If he had returned to train the boy as his apprentice, we would have known.”
The only part of that conversation I heard was the boy my parents rescued. That meant… “Mason is the reason I was kidnapped?”
Andy nodded.